Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Obituaries that had been written can now be filed, shredded and destroyed, the king may have seemed to breathe a final terminal breath, outdone by seeing double at the last but Queensryche lives on. In some bizarre way there are now two Queensryches fighting for the crown as if stuck in some York/Lancaster melodrama for the nation of England. Geoff Tate, the former vocalist of the band Queensryche, now with his own band…Queensryche in one corner and the carriers of the flame with Todd La Torre at the helm ready to storm battlements and carry this new rejuvenated band forward. There really can be only one winner, the King is dead but Queensryche will survive.
The new self-titled album by, let’s call them Queensryche for now, is as close to the original sound as you could ever expect and Todd La Torre has bought Michael Wilton, Scott Rockenfield and Eddie Jackson to a point where they have been before, the circle has closed and the result is dynamic, fresh and unhindered by any bitterness corrupting the music. It is pure and battle-hardened and it is arguably the better album by the two bands and is so much more complete.
Nearly 30 years on from the band’s debut album, the 1984s The Warning, the initial burst of West Coast America has resurfaced like Atlantis rising from its watery grave to give hope to young musicians coming through that Progressive Metal is as vital as it was when the band released Operation: Mindcrime. The power and aggression of the metal genre but the ability to hang a meaningful tale upon its broad shoulders is the backbone to great story telling and in tracks such as Where Dreams Go To Die, Redemption, Spore and the telling song of Don’t Look Back all heave with expectation and sincere delivery. Even the instrumentals of Midnight Lullaby and the opener X2 have a certain alienating pleasure to them which is annoyingly gratifying.
When bands split up there will always be a faction of fans that go one way or the other, their loyalty torn and questioned over and over again. This might not end up as a brutal spat between cousins as in the English War of the Roses but there will surely be only one certain winner.
Ian D. Hall